Your Dice

[Afterglow]

Hello fellow Escapists.

I was wondering if the good people here could help me with a project I'm doing for a course in material culture as a part of my Master's studies in Archaeology. The subject? Dice and how people interact with them. This is primarily directed towards those that play pen and paper RPGs but if you do more of other kinds of tabletop gaming, I'd love to hear from you too.

If you could answer the following questions that would really help me. If you'd rather not put this information up here, feel free to send me a message.

All information divulged is, of course, confidential (unless you post here, in that case it is quite public) and I will not reference individual people/user accounts. I do reserve the right to keep the information for future reference but will remove any identifying traits (account names, etc.) before hand.

All of the questions are only about actual, physical dice, and not virtual dice. However, if you use virtual dice in your tabletop (as opposed to computer) games I'd like to hear about that too.

1. What is your age (Teens, 20's, 30's, etc. is enough if you don't want to divulge your exact age), sex and nationality?
2. For what do you most commonly use dice? Role-playing games, tabletop games, gambling games, etc.? Please mention the specific games you use your dice for the most.
3. Roughly how many dice do you own?
4. Are you dice only six-sided or do you own other forms?
5. Do you own dice that are unusual in shape or material? These would include andy one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.
6. How do you keep you dice? In a bag, box, etc.?
7. Do you have any superstitions concerning your dice? This would include always having the highest number face up and jinxing.
8. If so, how does it work? For example, how does one jinx dice?
9. Do you have any good advice to "un-jinx" dice that have suffered that terrible fate?
10. What is the tallest/most creative dice pyramid you have ever created?
11. Any comments on your dice in particular or dice in general you would like to add?

I'd like to thank all who take the time to answer these questions and help me get a good grade in the course in advance.

 

[A Weakgeek]

Im sorry, little offtopic BUT I MUST ASK.

one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.

What is a one-sided dice. I googled it and got no results...

 

[Afterglow]

Im sorry, little offtopic BUT I MUST ASK.

one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.

What is a one-sided dice. I googled it and got no results...

I'm not surprised. It is a kind of novelty die. Basically a ball with a single pip painted on.

 

[A Weakgeek]

Im sorry, little offtopic BUT I MUST ASK.

one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.

What is a one-sided dice. I googled it and got no results...

I'm not surprised. It is a kind of novelty die. Basically a ball with a single pip painted on.

Soo, theres a 100% change of success? Cool, I wonder if there is a casino game using those dice...

 

[Sean Renaud]

1. What is your age (Teens, 20's, 30's, etc. is enough if you don't want to divulge your exact age), sex and nationality?

Twenties.

2. For what do you most commonly use dice? Role-playing games, tabletop games, gambling games, etc.? Please mention the specific games you use your dice for the most.

Most often Dungeons and Dragons, I don't specifically own and of the games but there is a Call of Cthulu board game we often play.

3. Roughly how many dice do you own?

30

4. Are you dice only six-sided or do you own other forms?

I use d4,d6,d8, d10 (one for each set with double digits so they combine for a d100. So a 10 and a 1=11 and 00+1=1 so on and so forth)

5. Do you own dice that are unusual in shape or material? These would include andy one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.

Somewhere I have a giant clay d6. What can I say I was bored in art class.

6. How do you keep you dice? In a bag, box, etc.?

Crown Royale bag.

7. Do you have any superstitions concerning your dice? This would include always having the highest number face up and jinxing.

I don't let other people touch my dice, they have a limited number of 20's in them and you have to roll an equal number of ones to balance the cosmos. IF someone rolls a twenty on my dice that's one less for me. And I'm criminally unlucky in DnD, like I've had charachters who's stats were too low to be ANY class.

8. If so, how does it work? For example, how does one jinx dice?

Stated above.

9. Do you have any good advice to "un-jinx" dice that have suffered that terrible fate?

You just wait it out.

10. What is the tallest/most creative dice pyramid you have ever created? I'm not into dice stacking. I had a friend however who managed once to balance a d12 ON a d4 which yeah that was impressive.

11. Any comments on your dice in particular or dice in general you would like to add?

Owning your own dice if you play DND is a must, it takes too long if an entire group share one set.

 

[Da Orky Man]

1. 17, male, British.
2. Tabletop games, mostly Warhammer and Apocalypse (1280s version).
3. 7. 6 normal steel dice, and one for artillery in wargames.
4. Six-sided, though I bet I could find some D-20 or something if I looked hard enough.
5. As I said, steel D-6.
6. The metal case the dice came in. Wrahmmer 25th Anniversary ones.
7. No
8. 'See above'
9. None
10. None
11. None

Hope you get a good mark!

 

[Llil]

1. 21, Male, Finnish
2. Board games, mostly. Although, most of my games don't use dice.
3. About 100, maybe. (I have at least 80 standard 6 sided dice)
4. I have multiple d4, d8, d10, d12, d20 and d30.
5. Does the 30 sided die count? I also have a tiny (and I mean really tiny, like you can accidentally inhale it -tiny) d6, and some of the dice in my board games have unusual symbols on the sides.
6. 2 clear platic boxes for the d6, and a zip lock bag full of mixed dice. The ones that belong to the board games are obviously in those boxes.
7. No.
8. If it works, it's cheating. So don't do that.
9. Keep rolling?
10. I'm more of a playing card tower person.
11. Rolling a bucket full of dice at once is FUN!

 

[Don Savik]

Whew, lotta questions, kay I'll try

1. 19 male, white boi
2. Dice mainly for Warhammer 40k, DnD, and occasionally board games with family
3. I have 2 sets (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20) of dice for DnD, and a container of like, 30 mini-dice for Warhammer because my orks have like a million attacks on the charge.
4. Lol I play DnD so I use em all
5. All my dice are see-through plastic of different colors. Not sure why, they just looked cool.
6. My DnD dice has its own little cloth pouch, its quite fancy and totally nerdy. Other dice come in plastic containers
7. Superstition in games is for the stupid. I think we are all smart enough to understand statistics. If your bad at a game that involves dice, you don't blame the random chance factor, you blame the factor that IS decided by the player.
8. nope
9. nope
10. Can't say that I have...I do tend to stack them when Im waiting on something though
11. People have a weird prejudice against dice that aren't six sided. Its like too complicated for them to understand other types of dice or something. "WHatS thiS craZY KiNd of Dice thiNg? WOahahah you kids and your games" *facedesk* or you usually get your classic bro grunts of "YOU PLAY DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS YOU NEEEEERRRRRRRDDDD!!!! FUCKING NEEERRRRDDD!!!"

And this is why I spend time on internet forums when I should be doing work.

 

[Aetherlblade]

1. 22, male, dutch.
2. Roleplaying games, boardgames. (DND, GRURPS, almost any board and card game there is )
3. 311 on my las count, every shape and size. some tiny ones, and some huge ones.
4. 4,6,8,10,12,16,20,30,50,100 sided ones.
5. Wooden ones, metal ones, 2 out of ivory, some aluminum and a few with lights in m, for the rest reasonably standard i think.
6. 2 bags, and pringel tubes.
7. No, although some people seem to be super lucky every game or the oppostite.
8. Well. It's just luck. but weird.
9. Burn. cleanse. kill.
10. dunno, nothing special. usally make walls of m during games until i need them. probably 10 wide, nine high orso.
11. nope

 

[Aprilgold]

1. Teens.
2. 20 sided die is the most useful, I play D&D, its your action dice, used for any action.
3. 1 whole set of regulars, colored like ninja, and then 4 plain 6 siders.
4. You are sent back to Answer 2 for the Answer to this question.
5. Go back to Answer 3 to see the answer.
6. A cloth pouch that has a jester pattern that has black string, it shines and feels a little bit fuzzy.
7-9. No, because its all luck or stats.
10. I can stack ALL of my dice is the answer.
11. Yes, that I usually can not find the correct dice in a nano second like everyone else. Also, I can imagine the bro-soliders do the whole "NNNEERRDDD!" Thing still, and probably won't end up as someone in the military, at least one who lives long.

And TA DA, theres your answers, that was easy.

 

[daemoni]

1) age 27, male, Canadian
2) Dice most commonly used for, RPG- D&D, table top games - backgammon,
and used as life/hit point counters for Magic the Gathering.
3)how many... quite a few, ok actual numbers after counting 48, seem to have misplaced a few,
and those are just mine, my roommates have more, but we keep them separate so we don't lose track of who owns which
4)only D6 (six sided)? no, i have D4, D8, D6, D10, D20, and a D100
5)unusual shape? that's kind of a subjective thing, when i first started playing games that needed
more dice, with more sides, they seemed strange, but now, they all seem normal to me.
As for materials, all of the dice are plastic, however some are clear, some look metallic,
others look similar to stone, and some are just solid shade of -insert colour here-.
6)Keep them in a small-ish cloth dice bag. nothing too fancy or expensive, plastic tears too
easily and i don't like having to replace dice
7)Superstitions, no, however I understand why some people do, just because you seem to roll
better after -random ritual here-, doesn't mean that is what made you roll better - psychology:
correlation is not causation
8)I've never 'jinxed' dice, but people I've gamed with that claim to have 'jinxed' dice, it is
usually after someone else has used them, something about the dice being 'in tune' or ' aligned'
with a specific person.
9)they threw said dice away, and pulled out an entirely different set of dice to continue playing
10)not really to creative, I just get bored easily, I stacked all of the dice I could find at
a friends house one on top of another, the tower of dice fell over at five and a half feet tall.
11) no, no additional comments.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

Let me spoil this (as everyone should've)

Spoiler

1. What is your age (Teens, 20's, 30's, etc. is enough if you don't want to divulge your exact age), sex and nationality?

Fifteen, male, American

2. For what do you most commonly use dice? Role-playing games, tabletop games, gambling games, etc.? Please mention the specific games you use your dice for the most.

Mainly just board games. Monopoly, Smartass (a really fun trivia game), those likes.

3. Roughly how many dice do you own?

Um, probably none. I have an app on my phone and iPod.

4. Are you dice only six-sided or do you own other forms?

Six-sided

5. Do you own dice that are unusual in shape or material? These would include andy one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.

Nope!

6. How do you keep you dice? In a bag, box, etc.?

Phone.

7. Do you have any superstitions concerning your dice? This would include always having the highest number face up and jinxing.
8. If so, how does it work? For example, how does one jinx dice?
9. Do you have any good advice to "un-jinx" dice that have suffered that terrible fate?

Not sure how to answer these...

10. What is the tallest/most creative dice pyramid you have ever created?

Eh, nothing.

11. Any comments on your dice in particular or dice in general you would like to add?

Nope.

 

[VoidWanderer]

Hello fellow Escapists.

I was wondering if the good people here could help me with a project I'm doing for a course in material culture as a part of my Master's studies in Archaeology. The subject? Dice and how people interact with them. This is primarily directed towards those that play pen and paper RPGs but if you do more of other kinds of tabletop gaming, I'd love to hear from you too.

If you could answer the following questions that would really help me. If you'd rather not put this information up here, feel free to send me a message.

All information divulged is, of course, confidential (unless you post here, in that case it is quite public) and I will not reference individual people/user accounts. I do reserve the right to keep the information for future reference but will remove any identifying traits (account names, etc.) before hand.

All of the questions are only about actual, physical dice, and not virtual dice. However, if you use virtual dice in your tabletop (as opposed to computer) games I'd like to hear about that too.

1. What is your age (Teens, 20's, 30's, etc. is enough if you don't want to divulge your exact age), sex and nationality?
I am 27 years old, male and a New Zealander.
2. For what do you most commonly use dice? Role-playing games, tabletop games, gambling games, etc.? Please mention the specific games you use your dice for the most.
I use them for role-playing games.
3. Roughly how many dice do you own?
I have around 25 dice.
4. Are you dice only six-sided or do you own other forms?
I have d4, d%, d10, d8, d12 and d20 as well as the standard d6.
5. Do you own dice that are unusual in shape or material? These would include andy one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.
None are unusual physically.
6. How do you keep you dice? In a bag, box, etc.?
Some are in a bag, others are in a box.
7. Do you have any superstitions concerning your dice? This would include always having the highest number face up and jinxing.
No superstition, I know they hate me.
8. If so, how does it work? For example, how does one jinx dice?
Apparently by me owning them.
9. Do you have any good advice to "un-jinx" dice that have suffered that terrible fate?
Don't let me use them
10. What is the tallest/most creative dice pyramid you have ever created?
Don't get the chance to
11. Any comments on your dice in particular or dice in general you would like to add?
None, they don't like me talking bad about them.

I'd like to thank all who take the time to answer these questions and help me get a good grade in the course in advance.

 

[N_of_the_dead]

1. 22 male American
2. D&D, Scion, Dark Heresy,
3. 1D4, 37D6, 1D8, 13D10, 1D12, 3D20, 1D%
4. See above
5. No, unless you count game science dice
6. Skull bag
7. No
8. I can't
9. My friends give them to me to un-jinx them I always roll well. One friend thought I was cheating till he saw me do it personally.
10. when it was one die holding up one die about ten die high using none of my D6 using all I can get maybe double that but i tend to stack die next to others to keep stability in that case.
11. Never had much of a problem doing well at rolling dies any of my friends will tell you I am their worst nightmare as a PC, I don't do any power builds like my friends usually normal ones like ranger into sworn slayer or rogue/swashbuckler or monk/drunken master yet I can get better rolls than their level six char that has a BA that can make them hit people with high 20's AC. Also enjoy insta-killing via multiple nat 20's in a row have killed about two enemies in D&D doing that both of them named enemies (both were rule 0'd by the DM for story purposes though)

 

[Something Amyss]

1. What is your age (Teens, 20's, 30's, etc. is enough if you don't want to divulge your exact age), sex and nationality?

31, American.

2. For what do you most commonly use dice? Role-playing games, tabletop games, gambling games,
etc.? Please mention the specific games you use your dice for the most.

RPGs, specifically Star Wars, White Wolf, and D&D most frequently. In that order.

3. Roughly how many dice do you own?

Over 200. I had a bunch of dice in my teens I lost. My mom found 'em a couple years ago, when I had got back into gaming and got a new collection.

4. Are you dice only six-sided or do you own other forms?

Multiple forms. Probably more D10s than any other one type, due to White Wolf titles.

5. Do you own dice that are unusual in shape or material? These would include andy one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.

I own some "crystal" dice. I don't actually use them, they're just a cool keepsake. I also own a D30 and 2 D100s. I want one coloured like the Death Star.

6. How do you keep you dice? In a bag, box, etc.?

I keep a few in a dice bag, and the rest in a big tupperware thingy.

7. Do you have any superstitions concerning your dice? This would include always having the highest number face up and jinxing.

Nope.

8. If so, how does it work? For example, how does one jinx dice?

N/A

9. Do you have any good advice to "un-jinx" dice that have suffered that terrible fate?

Pre-roll the ones out!

10. What is the tallest/most creative dice pyramid you have ever created?

Never really measured.

11. Any comments on your dice in particular or dice in general you would like to add?

Most of my dice are cheap, since I GM and nobody ever remembers dice.

 

[GundamSentinel]

1. What is your age (Teens, 20's, 30's, etc. is enough if you don't want to divulge your exact age), sex and nationality?
24, male, Dutch

2. For what do you most commonly use dice? Role-playing games, tabletop games, gambling games, etc.? Please mention the specific games you use your dice for the most.
Boardgames, mostly roll-and-move games (Monopoly, Cluedo, Trivial Pursuit), or dice games like Yahtzee.

3. Roughly how many dice do you own?
I haven't a clue, they're all in the box of the game they belong to, so it's hard to count. I'd take a wild guess and say about 30.

4. Are you dice only six-sided or do you own other forms?
I only use six-sided ones.

5. Do you own dice that are unusual in shape or material? These would include any one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples.
I've got a transparent glass one with two six-sided dice inside it. Most of my dice are made of wood, with some plastic ones.

6. How do you keep your dice? In a bag, box, etc.?
With the board game they belong to, and some left-over ones in a cup in the kitchen.

7. Do you have any superstitions concerning your dice? This would include always having the highest number face up and jinxing.
No. Just that I never use the Trivial Pursuit dice, because they don't roll well.

8. If so, how does it work? For example, how does one jinx dice?
-

9. Do you have any good advice to "un-jinx" dice that have suffered that terrible fate?
Use other dice.

10. What is the tallest/most creative dice pyramid you have ever created?
When playing a boardgame I sometimes stack all the dice at hand (no more than five), that's it.

11. Any comments on your dice in particular or dice in general you would like to add?
Nope.

 

[Som_kun]

19M White
2. D&D and Shadowrun
3. 10 ish
4. A standard set (4,6,8,10,100,12,20) some extra 6s and my best friends d20 (he died of cancer and left his lucky d20 to me... never go anywhere without it)
5. I have hand carved dice with elven script
6. Crown royal bags, cuz they are the shiz. I used to use a kangaroo scrotum until it was eaten by a dog
7. No one else touches my dice. and I roll my best friend's d20 before every game and gauge my luck as such.. his die is also used when the stakes are highest
8. Dice arn't jinxed just fated
9. leave them on a copy of the hobbit overnight
10. I did all my dice stacked once

 

[theheroofaction]

1.16 male, interracial
2.Mostly for Settlers of Catan, but Occasionaly for an rpg.
3. Somewhere in the high double digits
4.I have a four, an 8 a ten and a twenty, as well as a ton of 6's that seem to come with every game.
5. Not really.
6. Various boxes
7. I believe that due to weight shifting a die will tend to roll the number it is most frequently laid up on
8. See previous
9.When a player, leave your die on the highest number, When GMing, leave the die with the upper middle number up. (as in an 11 on a d20 and a 4 on a d6 a 6 on a d10 and so on)
10. It was kind of a crude version of a courthouse, made of an amalgation of d6's
11.Everyone should Try to get non-black dice as that's the most common color and getting your dice mixed up with another players tends to have a negative response

 

[sir.rutthed]

1. What is your age (Teens, 20's, 30's, etc. is enough if you don't want to divulge your exact age), sex and nationality? 23, Male, American
2. For what do you most commonly use dice? Role-playing games, tabletop games, gambling games, etc.? Please mention the specific games you use your dice for the most. Roleplaying and board games mostly. Right now I pretty much only ever play Star Wars Revised Core D20, DND 3.5, Munchkin, Quelf, Risk.
3. Roughly how many dice do you own? 29 that I can find. I probably have a few d6's lying around in various board games.
4. Are you dice only six-sided or do you own other forms? I have 4,6,8,10,12, and 20 sided dice and several of each.
5. Do you own dice that are unusual in shape or material? These would include andy one-sided dice, 100-sided dice and dice made of metals, for some examples. Nope, but there's a pair of fuzzy d20's in a comic shop I've had my eyes on for a while to hang up in my truck.
6. How do you keep you dice? In a bag, box, etc.? In an old bag of Crown Royal.
7. Do you have any superstitions concerning your dice? This would include always having the highest number face up and jinxing. Not really, but I always have a roll off between my d20's before starting a game. I take them all and roll them, and take the highest few each time until I'm down to one which I use for most of my rolls that night.
8. If so, how does it work? For example, how does one jinx dice? I don't believe in jinxing, but see above.
9. Do you have any good advice to "un-jinx" dice that have suffered that terrible fate? Nope.
10. What is the tallest/most creative dice pyramid you have ever created? I don't really stack more than a simple tower when I'm really bored. I always top them with a d4, but that's just because I like how it looks.
11. Any comments on your dice in particular or dice in general you would like to add? Not really. I treat my dice good, and they're pretty good to me.

 

[Sonicron]

1. 24, male, German.
2. Roleplaying games. (Too many for me to count or name right now; currently, Wild Cards, Unknown Armies, Black Crusade and Scion are getting the most play.)
3. Around 70.
4. d4, d6, d8, d10, d20.
5. No.
6. I keep my regularly used assortment in a small bag of black cloth.
7. Not sure if this counts, but I have astonishingly bad luck when it comes to throwing dice.
8. ... Huh?
9. No.
10. What the hell...?
11. No.